On Saturday night I saw a news story about the economic downturn in Ireland.Since Ireland "flew higher" than some of the other European countries during the good times, it sounds like it may be experiencing a harder landing now.
While watching, I started wondering to myself whether economic troubles could -- in a place like Ireland, with its long history of violence -- lead to renewed violence as people become frustrated and look for someone to blame.
Then on Sunday, two British soldiers were killed in northern Ireland by a group claiming affiliation with the IRA; this morning, the Washington Post reports on another killing (this time of a Northern Ireland policeman):
The killing of officer Stephen Paul Carroll, two days after the slayings of two British soldiers at an army base north of Belfast, has shocked a province that thought its three decades of armed conflict, known as the Troubles, were finally over.126. This needs to be nipped in the bud before it spirals into a cycle of revenge killings on both sides. What steps are Martin McGuinness and other Irish leaders taking to try to avoid an escalation?Dissident paramilitary groups said they carried out the killings: The Real IRA said it killed the soldiers, and the more obscure Continuity IRA asserted responsibility for the police killing. Both groups oppose British rule of the province and want it to be reunited with Ireland.
The Irish Republican Army, which led the popular uprising during the Troubles, agreed to the landmark Good Friday peace accords in 1998 and decommissioned its weapons in 2005. The IRA agreed to pursue its cause through politics, but the marginal splinter groups continue to conduct sporadic violent attacks.
